Annoyed over being stopped for frisking by security staff at the CM’s residence, Leader of Opposition in Haryana Assembly, Abhay Singh Chautala, and other INLD MLAs returned without submitting a memorandum on farmers’ issues to CM Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday. After a meeting of the party’s state executive, INLD MLAs led by Abhay Chautala and Lok Sabha MP Dushyant Singh Chautala had gone to submit a memorandum to the CM. But when the security staff asked them to deposit their mobiles, wallets and pens before entering the CM residence, the MLAs termed it an insult to a delegation of elected representatives. Chautala also objected stating that they were invited to submit the memorandum and such frisking was not appropriate.

“It was not only insult to the MLAs, but also the people of the entire state as they were representatives of the state. We have seen many CMs, but not such behaviour. We won’t attend any meeting or function to be organised at the CM house in future,” said Chautala. According to the INLD leader, he received a telephone call from the Chief Minister after the incident in which Khattar said that the security staff wanted to ensure that the visitors were not carrying any arms. But Chautala insited that it was an insult to them. Earlier, after a meeting of the state executive, INLD leaders went on to gherao the CM’s residence situated in Sector 3, Chandigarh. But Chandigarh Police stopped them by installing barricades. Later, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister RK Khullar reached there to receive memorandum from the protesters. But Chautala insisted that they wanted to hand over the memorandum to the Chief Minister only. Khullar agreed to it after apparently conveying a message to the CM residence. The protesters reached there, but returned without meeting the CM. Later, a memorandum was handed over to Khullar for forwarding it to the Prime Minister.

In the memorandum, the INLD has demanded implementation of recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission Report on fixing Minimum Support Price (MSP) for farm produce. The memorandum pointed out that during the run up to the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, the BJP had made promise that “if voted to power, it would fix the MSP of agricultural produce in accordance with the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission Report that is 50 per cent profit on the cost of production”.

“To convince the farmers that it was not an empty promise, the then Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders had reiterated that promise from every possible platform. However, after ‘hoodwinking’ the farmers into voting for it, the BJP in the state and Centre, not only suffered selective amnesia, but also expressed the non-feasibility of implementing the recommendations of Swaminathan Report,” said the memorandum.

INLD delegation to visit Mandsaur

INLD’s state working committee on Wednesday decided to send a delegation of the party to Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh to express solidarity with the struggling farmers of Madhya Pradesh. The delegation will leave for Mandsaur on June 17. It also decided to stage demonstrations by party’s Kisan Cell at all district headquarters on June 16 and submit a memorandum to the deputy commissioners for forwarding it to the President.